But a major part of my job is assessing apprenticeships and I can't get my head around it at all. I'm not alone. The woman who was taken on at the same time as me is struggling, just not as much as I am, two guys who've left were subsequently found to have been shambolic in this work. So we have a developing pattern, but each instance is down to individual failure rather than a lack of effective training. If you complain it's all, "we all muddle through", but if you do it wrong you're at fault.

So I'm being offered the chance to go part-time doing some work which is seriously pants, but which will keep money coming in or leaping onto the dolequeue at a time when unemployment is rocketing and I'm way past the "50 yrs old on the scrapheap" mark.

Anyone got 250K ? There's a seriously good renovation project in France to have a crack at.

keep to the Fen Causeway